Dipper POV

Before I begin, I want to be perfectly honest:

Stan as mayor would have been a horrible idea.

I mean yeah, sure , it would have been fun for a bit, but it was still Stan. Add on to that, he was still under Ford's identity, so that wouldn't have ended well. And I'm sure Great Uncle Ford would have been mad.

But we wanted to try. He wanted to be mayor, so naturally we wanted to help him. Things got messy for a bit, though, and we just couldn't take it. It's for the best that Stan didn't win. At least, that's what I hope. All his talk of not getting younger and wanting to do something… It scared me, somewhat.

So needless to say, it had been a busy couple of days. Heck, it had been a busy summer, but it was easy to tell that something big was on its way. With Ford back, Pacifica on our side, and Gideon on the rise, it wasn't hard to imagine something bigger on the horizon. What it was no one knew, not even Ford.

Speaking of Pacifica, I had gone a few days without talking to her. In fact, her parents hadn't even taken a big part at the mayor election, which was weird considering the old mayor had been at their party…

That thought lingered in my mind for a moment, but the mayor was old and at some point conspiracy theories turned into accusations of murder and I didn't want to go through that again.

My thoughts drifted back to Pacifica, and a flicker of worry flashed through me. I hadn't seen her at all since the party. I mean, sure sometimes she disappeared for a few days, but after the way she talked about her parents that night I was suddenly worried.

I felt bad for not having thought of her before, but we had kind of been busy with the whole portal-to-hell opening in our basement thing.

"Hey Mabel, have you seen Pacifica lately?" I turned to my sister, who was sprawled out on her bed. She looked at me a bit surprised.

"No, not since the party." She admitted, "Why? Miss her?"

Her teasing tone had me on the verge of blushing, but I frowned and shook my head. "Hrm. Sort of. I'm worried about her. Isn't it weird that her parents didn't throw a fuss about the election or anything?"

"I guess so." She shrugged, "Do you think we should check on her?"

I thought back to what her parents had acted like at the party, and immediately decided against it. We would be kicked out at best, and that wouldn't help anything.

"No, I don't think her parents would let us in." I saw the look on her face at that, and immediately knew what she was thinking. "And we're not going to break in. I'll go ask Grunkle Stan about it."

She huffed and pouted, but I wasn't about to let her convince me to break into the Northwest Mansion. That was a terrible idea, and I knew terrible ideas!

I slowly pulled myself off of my bed and into a standing position. I reached my arms over my head and stretched as I walked across the room. Once I was out of Mabel's sight, however, I quickened my pace. The last thing I wanted was Mabel teasing me about liking, ugh, Pacifica Northwest.

"Grunkle Stan?" I wandered around for a moment as I looked for my grunkle. I felt concern slowly rise in my stomach as the thought of Pacifica being missing began to grab at my mind, and I bit my lip.

I had probably gotten her in trouble. It had been necessary, of course, but I hadn't offered to help her, or checked on her or anything. Guilt hit me as I realized she had probably been grounded, which would explain her disappearance.

"Grunkle–" I started as I heard someone walk behind me, but quickly corrected myself. "Great uncle Ford!"

"Hmph?" The man grunted and looked up from his notepad. He smiled when he saw me, and I smiled back. "Well hello, Dipper!"

A slight giddiness rose within me as I grinned. "Hiya Great Uncle Ford! Hey, can I ask a question?" I realized he may know more about how Pacifica may have been treated than I, and was eager to question him about it.

He gave me a weary look–something I didn't blame him for–and hesitantly agreed.

The image of the Northwest's bell flashed into my head, and I wondered how they had trained Pacifica to react so badly to the bell. I decided that would be my first question.

"What do you know about… Um…" I tried to think of how to word the question, "Conditioning? Like, conditioning people to react negatively to something?"

He gave me a worried look with something like panic in it. I realized how that must have sounded and backpedaled.

"I-I mean," I said quickly, "If I know someone who is conditioned like that, how do I know how they were conditioned?"

"Hm, well there could be a lot of factors involved… Here, follow me."

We walked into the kitchen where Grunkle Stan was sitting at the table. We sat by him, but he didn't acknowledge us.

"Well," Ford began again, "If they react negatively to something, it could be that something bad happened regarding that thing in particular. Not necessarily a conditioned behavior."

"What if it's like a cue? And their behavior changes when introduced to that thing?"

"And they react negatively?" At my nod, Ford exhaled a deep breath. "Sounds like a negative stimulant. Pain or punishment of some kind associated with that thing."

He went on to describe how such a trigger could be developed, but I stopped listening. The pain part stuck out to me. Punishment made sense, but the pain part scared me. Was Pacifica hurt when faced with the bell? Is that why she didn't want to disobey? Not because of fear of rejection or grounding or anything, but of pain? That would explain why she was so hesitant to pull the lever. As morbid as it was, the idea that she would have preferred being turned to wood than disobeying her parents made a lot more sense.

"Dipper? You okay?" Ford's concerned tone snapped me out of my thoughts, ans I saw him and Stan looking at me with worry.

I wanted to tell him what I was thinking, but I was unsure. I didn't want to make Pacifica's situation worse, and I didn't even know for sure what was going on. But all the same, I knew she probably needed help.

"Yeah." I said nervously, "Yeah, I'm fine. I have to, uh, go–" I got up from my seat and ran from the room. I could hear Ford and Stan call behind me, but I ignored them and trudged upstairs.

Pacifica could be hurt. Or she could be fine and be grounded. But I thought to that bell, and I knew that wasn't likely. Something was wrong, and I needed to find out what.

"Mabel, get your grappling hook."